The Design Museum has reopened, after a move to High Street Kensington. How did design create the modern world? See below...

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The Design Museum which reopened in November celebrates a process which is inextricably linked with the modern world. The period from 1770 to 1914 saw European society change profoundly. Industrialisation meant that craftsmen could no longer make spontaneous decisions about what they made. The actual creation of a product was increasingly mechanised, and a product's form had to be worked out carefully beforehand. The person doing this planning became known as a designer. This process began late in the eighteenth century, and is well illustrated by developments in textile production. In 1764 James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny, a machine with sixteen spindles that greatly speeded up the spinning process. By 1769 this machine was being sold widely. Before any item was made using the spinning jenny it had to be planned, and then put into production.

But it wasn't only technical planning that designers were responsible for. As they were designing the process to create a product, it occurred to many that planned changes to a product would help sales. From the 1760s the Lyons silk industry introduced twice yearly collections to enhance differentiation between products, to stimulate trade, and to combat copying. By 1800 patterns in printed cotton for dresses changed routinely with each season. For furniture fabrics new patterns were produced every two to three years.

So designers created the technical ability of modern industry to produce products efficiently. They also created the idea of fashion that would keep people buying those products.

Christmas markets are today considered a continental tradition, but they were popular in England up intil the seventeenth century when Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas. Following the restiration of the monarch in 1600 Christmas returned, though Christmas markets were slower to make a come back. Today there are many Christmasd markets around the UK, many of which have a welcome continental influence. Go to http://www.christmasmarkets.com/location/uk/ for more details.

Anniversaries for December

1st December 1942: Britain's wartime coalition government reveals plans for a welfare system designed to care for all from "cradle to the grave." Proposals are set out in the Beveridge Report, written by economist William Beveridge. The report sells half a million copies, a considerable quantity for a governent report. Winston Churchill decides to delay implementation of proposals until after the war, while Labour MPs give enthusiuastic support. This probably explains the landslide victory of Clement Attlee's Labour givernment in the general election of 1945.

2nd December 1954: After years of hounding alleged Communists in government, the entertainment industry and education, Senator Jospeh McCarthy is censured by the United States Senate for conduct unbecoming of a senator.

25th December 1960: The General Post Office makes its final Christmas Day deliveries.

31st December 1879: At Menlo Park, New Jersey, the inventor Thomas Edison demonstrates his incandescent lighting system, the light bulb, for the first time. Although this cannot claim to be the first lightbulb, Edison's work led to the first commercially viable lightbulb system.

A preview of my novel - about a girl who discovers that surprisingly she can't find her way to the sort of secret world found in story books. So she searches for an alternative.

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